American duo Rictus Of Rage released an album in 2021 titled “Variant”, an exceptionally powerful and beautifully realized heavy rock treasure trove that never fails to amaze…
The duo is Mike Masser playing the instruments and Jeff Watson on vocals…however, they’ve been through a turbulent time, especially with the passing of Jeff last year…but Mike’s goal is to keep Jeff’s legacy alive, his memory always ringing in our ears, hearts and souls…and they left one powerful and poignant legacy with “Variant”…perhaps Mike would continue the journey and grace the world with more excellent music…
“Variant” has 8 songs within its realm…with the first song to start the album being an excellent intro to the experience…” Sepsis” starts like a moody and atmospheric song, that takes its time to build up ambient tension till it transforms into a very dark, heavy riffing head banging one-of-a-kind experience…we might even say that the intro to the song shares some musical DNA with TOOL, “Sepsis” is both an excellent introduction and expectation setter to the album experience.
“Heretic” is another example of the duo’s talents and clever music composition…they managed to create a very iconic song here, with an instantly recognizable intro, verse, and chorus…the whole song sounds and feels huge…
Jeff delivers an absolutely brilliant performance across the whole album with his unique and powerful rap cadence that flows uniquely with the heavy and dark vibes, but “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” is where he might have transcended into a new level of being in-the-zone…his performance is absolutely real, raw and powerful.
Mike does a stunning job of playing all the instruments on the album…and boy, does he unleash hell on the drums and guitars…the beats are super-powerful, the guitars are heavy, dark, chuggy, and absolutely huge.
The album holds a high level of energy throughout all of its songs…except for the last song “Dreams of Deathbed”…where they present a completely fresh side of their talents and surprise the world with a downtempo musical and lyrical adventure with some excellent sound design elements that almost creates a short film that you could see and experience through music…
We wish all the best to Rictus Of Rage, to Mike, and may Jeff rest in peace.
